Zachariah's Smash Cake

I had a blast baking a smash cake for my nephew then capturing him in the process of smashing it. I used a box mix Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge (Since I knew it was going to be mostly smashed and trashed and not eaten). Prepped my 6" round pan with Cake Release and parchment, then scooped 3 cups of batter into pan. Baked at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Invert pan onto cooling rack until room temp, then move to fridge. Use leftover batter for cupcakes. 

Buttercream Frosting
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 sticks (1 1/2 cup) room temperature butter
1 tbsp clear vanilla extract
3 tbsp heavy whipping cream
 food coloring as needed. For the drum cake 6" I left most white, colored some gray. (Leftover frosting used to cover cupcakes).

Once the cake was chilled, I leveled it and frosted it with the buttercream, moved it back into fridge to set. Using a plain Viva paper towel, I gently placed it on the top and sides to smooth out any bumps or air bubbles. Laid the paper towel on top and used Color Mist* in blue to spray the sides. *Remember to protect the surface you are working on with newspaper to collect over-spray. I used the gray tinted frosting in a piping bag with a petal tip 102 to make the top and bottom borders. Next, I used tip 3 to pipe the vertical lines and tip 102 again to go over the lines. Piped his little initials on the front and called it a drum.

We set up the area in my kitchen with lots of windows, covered it with a plastic silver tablecloth, threw in a couple balloons, hung his name in letters from the window sill, a pinata that I made, and I got to use my new cake stand. Add baby; commence pictures.

 These I am going to put together into an album along with video we shot, set to happy birthday music. My sister is going to pick her favorite pic and they are also going to be used in the favor bags as thank you notes.

I can't wait to make his birthday cakes in a couple weeks for his actual party. They will be a larger drum cake and a guitar.

Precious, right?

Jennifer's birthday cake

My boss (!) ordered a cake for his wife's birthday. He said he wanted it all about fresh fruit and a chocolate cake. I'm using my tried and true chocolate cake recipe, layered with raspberry glaze, all wrapped in a light lemon cream cheese frosting, and topped with more raspberries, and chocolate shavings.

Chocolate Cake 

1 1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup butter, room temp

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

2 cups cake flour, sifted

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup milk

6 oz semi sweet chocolate baking bars, melted and cooled

In mixing bowl combine sugar, butter and vanilla. Add eggs and beat for 1 minute. Add melted chocolate. Add flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually add milk. In two, 8" round baking pans, spray with oil, coat sides with cocoa powder and line with parchment paper. Divide batter between pans and bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool to room temp on wire rack then move to fridge to chill before frosting.

I used fresh raspberries in place of strawberries to make a glaze to go in between the 4 layers of chocolate cake. 

Raspberry Glaze

16 oz fresh raspberries

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup water

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tbsp cornstarch

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

2 (8) ounce package cream cheese, softened
1 stick butter, softened
2 lbs. confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
juice of one lemon

Shawn's birthday cake

Cake for a coworker. Cake mixes are Betty Crocker Devil's Food and French Vanilla. Alternate scoops of each batter into two 8" round pans, greased, floured and parchment paper cut to size. Use a long skewer and sweep through the batter (not too much) to create the marbling. Since one box is enough to fill two pans, I used the leftover batter for a 18 cupcakes of vanilla and devil's food to take to work to feed the masses. Buttercream is the new recipe I used for the Pumpkin cake and everyone agreed is much silkier than the buttercream I made before. I wanted so badly to use the rainbow sequins I bought.

Buttercream Frosting
12 cups powdered sugar
8 sticks (1 cup) room temp unsalted butter
4 tsp clear vanilla extract
8 tbsp heavy whipping cream
Divide as needed and add food coloring to desired shade.

I made the 1M technique swirls on the cupcakes and topped them and the cake with the rainbow sequins. No pictures of them though.

Happy Halloween

I saw on Pinterest a pumpkin shaped cake made using bundt pans. I used one box of Betty Crocker Devil's Food and one box of French Vanilla. Make sure to spray and flour the pan well so it doesn't stick. I made the frosting from scratch in two batches, one dyed green and one dyed orange. The stem is a ice cream cone sprayed with Wilton's Color Mist Spray. The jack o'lantern face is Wilton Sugar Sheet in black.

Buttercream Frosting
3 cups powdered sugar
2 sticks (1 cup) room temperature butter
2 tsp clear vanilla extract
2 tbsp heavy whipping cream
food coloring as needed.

I made one batch of green and then one batch of orange. I used the green to frost inside the round of the bundt, and to make the vines and the leaves.

Joaquin's 3rd Superhero Birthday

POW! We're talking superheroes now! I recently met a cousin of mine who just turned 3 and my aunt asked me to make his birthday cake for his party.

Happy Birthday Joaquin!

Half sheet pan 11x15x2" takes 11 cups batter, most cake recipes or mixes yield between 4-6 cups batter, so you can either double a recipe to get roughly 8-12 cups or triple the recipe and measure out the 11 cups and use the remaining to make taste tester cupcakes. I just doubled the recipe for each layer and baked 2 layers. The strawberry glaze is torted between the layers. The entire cake is frosted with the whipped cream frosting. Borders and designs are all buttercream. 12 hours of work total, phew!

Vanilla Cake (doubled)
2 cups butter, room temp
3 cups sugar
5 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
4 large eggs
6 egg yolks
4 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups low-fat buttermilk

In mixer, cream together butter and sugar. Beat in vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Sift together with a fork. In mixer add eggs and egg yolks, one at a time. Add flour and buttermilk, alternating, beginning and ending with flour. Mix until just combined. Spray half sheet pan with misting oil, coat with flour and line with parchment. Make sure to get corners well. Pour batter into pan and bake in oven preheated to 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Move onto wire cooling rack and allow to  cool for 20 minutes before releasing from pan. Run the edge of a plastic offset spatula around edge of pan to release sides then invert onto rack. Continue to cool to room temperature and move into fridge to chill. I did 2 layers so each layer consisted of the double recipe above.

Delicious strawberry glaze.

Strawberry Glaze
32 oz fresh strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp cornstarch

In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and water. In a medium saucepan, add strawberries, sugar and lemon juice, bring to boil for 10 minutes. Stir in cornstarch mixture and lower heat, simmer for 3-5 minutes. I added 1/4 tsp of no-taste red food gel to make sure this came out a true red and not a pink. Strain if desired, but continual stirring will break down any remaining chunks and leave a pulpy glaze, which I like. Refrigerate.

Whipped Cream Frosting
4 cups  heavy whipping cream
8 tbsp powdered sugar
16 tbsp clear piping gel
2 tsp clear vanilla extract

In mixing bowl with whisk attachment, add heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar, beat on medium high speed until stiff peaks form. Add piping gel and vanilla. Mix until just combined. Use immediately and refrigerate cake after frosted.

 Frozen Buttercream Transfers

Colors!

1-1/2 cup butter, softened
1-1/2 cup shortening
1 tbsp clear vanilla extract
12 cups powdered sugar
6 tbsp milk

Cream together shortening and butter. Beat in vanilla. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. Add milk. Divided into parts to make red (use red-red, no-taste red gel colors and mix in a little bit of the glaze), blue, green, yellow, white, and black. Print out or draw a mirror image of the design you would like to use onto paper. Tape this onto a flat sheet like a cookie sheet. I used a cake board cut to fit into the freezer. Tape a piece of waxed paper over the image. Draw outlines, then fill in with colors. Move to freezer and allow to chill for 20 minutes to an hour. Press onto cake and lift away waxed paper. 

WHAM

BOOM @?*!

ZONK

BANG POW

Jaiden's 3rd Princess Birthday

Princess castle themed cake!

Chocolate Cake
3-3/4 cup sugar
2-1/4 cup butter, room temp
1 tbsp vanilla
9 eggs
6 cups cake flour, sifted
1 tbsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp salt
3 cups milk
18 oz semi sweet chocolate baking bars, melted and cooled

18 oz of chocolate. mmm. chocolate.

In mixing bowl combine sugar, butter and vanilla. Add eggs and beat for 1 minute. Add melted chocolate. Add flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually add milk. In 6x3" round and two 10x2" round baking pans,  spray with oil, coat sides with cocoa powder and line with parchment paper. Divide batter between pans and bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees. I rotate my pans after 20 minutes to ensure even baking. Cool to room temp on wire rack then move to fridge to chill before frosting. Cakes are leveled and torted with buttercream.

Black Cherry Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
1-1/2 cups solid vegetable shortening
1-1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tsp clear vanilla extract
1 tsp cherry Kool-aid powder
12 cups powdered sugar, sifted
6 tbsp milk

Cream together shortening and butter. Add vanilla. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. Add milk. This makes a pretty pink frosting. I divided it in thirds, added kool-aid to make 1/3 pink, added blue and violet food coloring and more kool-aid to make the purple frosting, the remaining 1/3 was only vanilla, to make green, brown and blue detail work.

The castle turrets are a regular ice cream cone sprayed with color mist, with a waffle cone inverted set into it and attached with buttercream. The waffle cones were painted with melted white chocolate and rolled in pink  and purple sprinkles. The flags are pink fondant cut into flag shapes, rolled onto a toothpick. Allow to air dry overnight with toothpicks threaded in to give them shape.

Sonya

I met a lady last week and somehow we got to talking about cakes. She asked if I could make one for an upcoming client meeting she had. She specifically wanted my UV Cake vodka whipped cream frosting, a vanilla cake and fruit. I drained the juice from a jar of maraschino cherries and added the remaining vanilla vodka from the "Corduroy" cake, the remaining cake vodka leftover after the frosting was made, a little water to cover and some sugar; soaked while baking and frosting. The vodka's I buy are shooter sized, perfect to have enough for individual cake recipes. The cakes were baked in 8" rounds.

Vanilla Cake
1 cup butter, softened
2-1/2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
2 tsp clear vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk

Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and yolks one at a time. Add vanilla. Alternatively beat in flour mixture and buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture until just combined. Divide batter between two 8x2" pans greased, floured and parchment cut to size. Baked at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. 

UV Cake Vodka Whipped Cream
3 cups heavy whipping cream
5tbsp powdered sugar
1tsp Wilton Color Flow mix
2 tbsp UV Cake Vodka

Whisk together cream and sugar until stiff peaks form. Add color flow and vodka until combined.

Drunken Cherries
6 oz maraschino cherries, juice drained
3 tbsp Vanilla Vodka
1 tbsp Cake Vodka
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp sugar
Add all into the jar with the cherries. Soak as long as needed.